Horizon League Links

Butler
Detroit
Illinois-Chicago
Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Wright State
Youngstown State
Horizon Connection

Forty Years Ago Today

12/27/02
by John C. Thomas

Thursday, December 27, 1962 vs. Arkansas at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Thanks to their victories over #10 Seattle and Indiana, Loyola moved up to the #3 spot in the AP Poll of December 25, 1962 behind Cincinnati and Ohio State. Duke suffered two unexpected losses in the previous week-- to unheralded Miami and Davidson-- that dropped them from #2 to #8.

Loyola flew to south the day after Christmas to participate in the three-day All-College Tournament at Oklahoma City's Municipal Auditorium. The All-College Tournament was the first holiday college basketball tournament, begun in 1935 by the Daily Oklahoman, Oklahoma City's biggest newspaper, but by the early sixties the Oklahoma City All Sports Association had taken over. The 1962 contest included Arkansas, Creighton, Toledo, Memphis State, Wyoming, Baylor, and Oklahoma City.

The All-College Tournament was a major event in Oklahoma. The teams were greeted at the airport by honorary coaches assigned to each school who escorted the teams to their hotel. The festivities began with a tipoff luncheon featuring the coaches of all the teams. Loyola, the tourney favorite, got a lot of the attention.

"In all my years of coaching," Coach Ireland told the luncheon crowd, "this is the first time I've ever been met at an airport or railroad station and brought to the hotel."

Dean Ehlers, a longtime assistant at Memphis in his first year as head coach noted, "We ran into Loyola last year and we felt we won a moral victory. We held them to just 100 points."

The banner headline in the sports section the morning Loyola was set to begin tournament play read: "Favored Loyola Opens All-College Drive Tonight." A photo of Vic Rouse, Les Hunter, and Jerry Harkness decked out in their travel suits ran just below the tournament preview, sandwiched next to a report on Loyola moving up in the AP rankings and the expected starting lineups for that night's games.

Loyola's first-round opponent was Arkansas. The Razorbacks were a tall and beefy team, and as a member of the Southwest Conference, all white. Four of the Hogs' starters were 6'6" or taller, dwarfing the Ramblers, who had three starters 6'2" or smaller. In the young 1962-63 season, the imposing Arkansas squad had already defeated Kansas and Missouri, and their loss to Oklahoma State was by a free-throw with no time left after an overtime period-- in Stillwater.

Loyola was scoreless for the first three and a half minutes of the game as the Razorbacks took a 4-0 lead. Two free throws from John Egan gave Loyola its first lead at 11-9 with 12:30 left to play in the first half. Razorbacks coach Glen Rose substituted liberally to keep fresh legs in the game, sending in a whole new lineup by the time the eight minutes had elapsed. With Loyola leading 20-18 with 5:25 left to the break, the Ramblers surged. Loyola closed out the first half with a 16-10 run to reach halftime on top, 36-28.

The second half began with the Ramblers putting on a little razzle-dazzle. The neutral site crowd cheered the underdog Razorbacks through the first half. But when the Ramblers went on an 8-0 run that included a leaping one-handed put-back slam from Les Hunter, the 3,800 in the crowd went wild for the Ramblers. A few minutes after Hunter's acrobatics, Loyola went on a 7-0 run to extend the lead to 57-37 with 11:45 left. The two teams traded baskets until the last five and a half minutes, when Coach Ireland turned it over to the bench.

Jerry Harkness impressed the Oklahoma City crowd with his 22 points on 8-for-14 shooting, eight rebounds and tough defense. Vic Rouse led the game in rebounds with 17 while adding 14 points, and Les Hunter scored 15 points to go with 11 rebounds.

The Ramblers were held to their lowest point output of the year, but the Loyola still won comfortably 81-62, and managed to play 11 players in the game. It was a good thing, because if Loyola planned to win the tournament, they would have to play hard in two more games in the next 48 hours.